Happy October film nerds! This month’s list of the last ten films I’ve watched reflects my concerted effort to spend most of my time watching horror films. And while I quite enjoyed most of these films, I once again seem to be running against the popular grain by not loving Martyrs. It felt unfortunately dated in its looks and style, philosophically thin despite its “big idea,” and somehow less violent than I expected. (I’m obviously a monster.)

Are We Not Cats was a surprisingly enjoyable body horror romance about a pair of underemployed twentysomethings with a proclivity for eating hair, Demon remains a secret masterpiece, Solo‘s production design was the movie’s star by capturing the janky technology and frontier spirit of the first two Star Wars films, and I loved watching a priest level-up on Catholic demon-fighting powers in The Unholy (even if my mother, who watched the film with my wife and I, thought the sexy demonic temptress had “ugly boobs” – Wha?). I watched Let Me Make You a Martyr specifically based on Sam Ashurst‘s description of it being “True Detective if it were directed by Andrei Tarkovsky” and while I’m not sure it’s quite the success he makes it out to be, the film’s unusual combination of ellipsis-heavy plot structure, white trash criminality, portentously philosophical dialogue, and grimy mise-en-scène kind of won me over.